10 thoughts on “Mi Perro Bilingüe”

I still remember back when I was first learning Spanish, and was visiting a family. The family dog walked into the living room, and the father told it to leave (in Spanish). It took me a minute or so, but I was able to figure out what he had said, as much by the dogs actions as by what he’d said. It was a pretty humbling experience to realize that the dog understood Spanish better than me. And the children spoke English to it and he understood them as well, so I really didn’t have anything between me and nothing!

That’s an interesting observation. To be completely 100% honest – my grammar can be mixed up. I use tú and vos, sometimes with the same person in the same conversation.

In the classroom, where I first learned Spanish, I never used “vos” — we were basically told to not even bother with it for the most part…. Then years later, I married a Salvadoran. Salvadorans use “vos” quite a bit. My suegra lived with us for about 10 years and I picked up a lot of her vocabulary — “Sentate” is one word I know for sure that I got from her. She would say this to my sons when they were really little and wouldn’t sit properly at the table to eat, for example.

I didn’t know many command words a long time ago because how often does one boss other people around? LOL… Then I became a mother and I needed these words. Go, Come, Sit, Eat, Leave it, Go to sleep, etc… These are also good for dogs, coincidentally jajaja :)

I love it! I too find it humbling that a dog is able to pick up languages better than I can. I still don’t know how to use “vos.” I figured “usted” and “tú” are good enough for now since I’m not really super-close to any Salvadorans, which from my understanding is when you would use “vos.”

Latching on to the “sentate” comment as an excuse to relate a funny story, my Salvadoran step-daughter went to law school in Spain. She had a doctor’s appointment, and was really surprised when the nurse told her “doble el culo” when she was ushered in to the examination room. She really hadn’t figured out what to make of that when the doctor entered and again she was told “doble el culo”. She was pretty indignant about the whole thing until she later learned the “doble el culo” is a not impolite Castillian Spanish way of inviting someone to take a seat!